


EGS Flash Fic Week 2019: Oblivious Wand Waving

by Laparoscopic



Category: El Goonish Shive
Genre: EGS Flash Fiction Week 2019, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Gen, M/M, Multi, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-02
Updated: 2019-09-02
Packaged: 2020-10-04 19:55:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20476628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laparoscopic/pseuds/Laparoscopic
Summary: A short-story for EGS Flash Fic Week 2019, as sponsored/run by Zee McZed. Thanks, Zee!





	EGS Flash Fic Week 2019: Oblivious Wand Waving

Susan lounged in a comfy chair in the bookstore, next to an ironically placed sign saying “Plot-Free Zone,” skimming _The Enchantment Emporium_. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to buy the book, but the first chapter seemed promising. She shivered slightly at a gust of cool air, but she ignored it until it recurred again. And then again. She looked up, annoyed. _What the heck? Am I sitting under an AC vent?_ She saw no sign of a vent, but what she _did_ see distracted her from her discomfort.

_Is there a furry convention in town?_ she wondered. For a good third of the book-store’s population was wearing some sort of animal costume. Cat-girls seemed to be a particular favorite, she noted with annoyance. Then she felt another shiver of cold, and some of the people she was looking at changed form again. Either to animal forms, or changing sex, or from animal back to human.

_That’s not an air conditioner I’m feeling_, she realized. _It’s magic._ She set her book down and stood up, looking around slowly. What was oddest about the transformations was that no one seemed to be aware they were happening. The beefy jock who had been perusing the _Sports Illustrated_ swimsuit edition a moment before displayed no awareness that he—_she_—was now eminently qualified to pose for that periodical.

Susan took a deep breath, and looked around. She was about to go exploring, to try and figure out what was going on, when Diane ran up to her, looking frantic.

“Susan! Oh, thank _god_, you’re not a cat.” She looked like she wanted to hug Susan, but was restraining herself with some difficulty.

“Ah, yeah.” She felt a little guilty that her first thought hadn’t been to find Diane to see how she was being affected by this magic, since they were shopping together. She gave her friend a curious look. “You’re not affected by this either?” Whatever “this” was.

Diane shivered at the same time as Susan did, as another wave of change washed through the store. _Definitely_ a predominance of catgirls, and the few male figures she could see bore striking resemblances to Elliot in their physiques. “No, I’m not, what the heck is going _on?”_ Diane demanded.

Susan shot her an incredulous look. “How should I know?”

“I don’t know! You’re the expert in all this magical crap!”

Susan snorted. “Hardly. That’d be Tedd.”

Diane seized upon that notion. “Tedd. Right. Didn’t we see him and Elliot earlier by the fountain?”

“Uh, yeah. Maybe we should—”

“We should find him and ask _him!”_ Diane blurted. “Come on!”

Apparently forgetting Susan’s touch aversion, Diane grabbed Susan’s hand and dragged her out of the Buns & Noodles Bookstore. Diane dragged her toward the central court fountain, scanning the mall for their objective.

Susan managed to regain control of her hand, somewhat surprised that her annoyance was more at being dragged than at being touched, but she didn’t have time to ponder that just now. “He may not be ‘he,’ at the moment,” Susan said. “They may not even be human.” Then she frowned, and stopped trotting after Diane. _Catgirls. Transformations. Predominantly female. Most of the few guys look a bit like Elliot. _“Tedd,” she growled, annoyed.

Diane turned around and looked at Susan, waving at her to come along. “Come on, let’s find him.”

“Oh, yeah, let’s find him,” Susan said darkly.

They almost passed by Tedd, as her form was mostly obscured by Elliot, who had her wrapped in his arms as they engaged in a serious game of tonsil-hockey.

Susan felt a blush rising as she watched the two, momentarily stopped in her tracks. She was bemused to note that Diane was similarly stunned into immobility. _Maybe she likes to Watch, too_, Susan mused, then she noted another shiver of magic pass through her, at the same time a wand in Tedd’s hand absently waved through the air. _Bingo!_

She plucked the wand out of Tedd’s hand. Tedd didn’t even seem to notice its lack, she just used her now-free hand to pull the back of Elliot’s head even closer to her.

“Is that it?” Diane asked, eyeing the wand in Susan’s hand.

“I think so?” She hesitantly gave it an experimental little _swish_ and _flick_. She and Diane both shivered a little as another wave of magic washed through the mall. “Yup.”

“Susan,” Diane said softly, suddenly looking intent.

“Hmm?” Susan examined the wand in her hand, being careful to not move it rapidly.

“Don’t turn around, but there’s an odd looking—woman? Man? Whatever—behind that palm tree behind you, who didn’t change, and they seem to be watching us rather intently.”

“Ah. So maybe this isn’t Tedd’s fault after all.”

“Well, not entirely.” Diane and Susan both glanced at Tedd and Elliot, who didn’t seem to be slowing down. If anything, having both hands freed up allowed Tedd to practically climb Elliot like a sexy tree.

Susan was pleased that Diane seemed to be blushing as much as she felt like she was, looking at the two unintentional exhibitionists. “Behind me?” she murmured to Diane, trying to drag things back on track.

“Yup.”

Susan thought about it for a moment. “In a moment, I’ll turn and confront this person. You try to slip around behind them.”

“Gotcha.” Diane turned and wandered away, looking fascinated by the clowder of cat-girls gathered around the fountain. Susan waited a moment, then turned and walked away from Tedd and Elliot, trying to look like she was fleeing from them in embarrassment. Which wasn’t too far from the truth. At least, if asked, that would be what she blamed her red face on.

The “odd figure” Diane had mentioned was blatantly obvious, even as she—yes, definitely she, despite that ludicrous fake mustache—tried to sidle around the palm tree as Susan walked vaguely toward her. But Susan had the reach on her, and the basic fencing lessons she’d been getting from Raven had taught her how to lunge properly. With her long legs, she was on the woman before she even knew Susan was approaching her, and Susan had a vise-like grip on the old woman’s arm before she could even squawk.

“You know,” Susan said conversationally, “That outfit is _really_ offensive to the Romani people. Even without the lousy mustache.”

The woman squirmed, trying to wrench her arm out of Susan’s grasp. Susan waited a moment, then let her slip free. The woman gave a short cry of triumph as she turned and ran directly into Diane. She bounced back and ended up sitting on the floor between the two.

“Although the mustache is pretty offensive too, just in its own right,” added Diane.

The old woman looked up at the two “cousins” with a disgruntled look on her face. “All right, you got me,” she grumbled.

Susan squatted beside the woman and yanked the mustache off the woman’s face, ignoring the small _yip_ of protest that that the action produced. She dropped the mustache, and held up her other hand, holding the wand. “So, is this yours?” she asked sweetly.

The woman scowled. “Not any more. I sold it to the purple-haired boy. It’s _his_, now.”

“Uh-huh. But you know how it works?” asked Diane, who had remained standing, looming over the sitting woman.

The woman made a scoffing sound. “It’s a wand. You wave it.”

Susan rolled her eyes. “Right. But how do we _undo_ all the changes it’s made?” She waved her free hand at the mall around them. “I really don’t think the world is ready for this, yet.”

“Yet?” asked Diane.

“Hrmph. You’re no fun,” muttered the old woman.

“You have no idea,” said Susan threateningly. “How do we undo this mess?” After a moment of sullen silence, she added, “Or, we could call in the magical authorities to sort this out. I’m _sure_ they’d love to talk with you.”

The woman slumped at that, and sighed. “Oh, very well. All you have to do is break the wand to break the spells. Simple, right?”

Susan eyed her, then exchanged a glance with Diane. _Too simple,_ she thought, and was pretty sure Diane was thinking the same thing. Susan lifted the wand and took it into both hands, and made as if to snap it in two. The old woman’s eyes went bright as she focused on the wand. Susan moved her hands in a sharp, sudden movement, and the woman gave a cry of triumph.

A cry which faded as she noticed the wand, intact, in one of Susan’s hands. “Thought so,” murmured Susan. She leaned in closer to the woman and growled, “Would you like to try again?”

The woman gulped, and looked up at Diane, as if looking for some escape there, but Diane was glaring down at her too. Susan was quite impressed at how menacing her friend managed to look; there really _was_ something to the aura of menace that an aberration hunter could project when needed.

This time, the old woman’s slump of defeat felt genuine. “Twirl it widdershins thirteen times,” she muttered. “Killjoys.”

“Widdershins?” asked Diane.

“Counter-clockwise,” Susan explained. She took the wand in her hand and tried to spin it around her fingers, but she couldn’t get it more than two or three revolutions before fumbling it. The old woman smirked.

“Oh, for—give it here,” said Diane. Susan looked up at the hand Diane was holding out, then shrugged and handed it to her. Diane hefted the wand in her hand, as if getting the feel of it, then she spun it in a circle so fast it reduced the wand to a blur. Susan had no way of counting the revolutions, but she could feel a wave of warmth as what she presumed was the counter-spell flowed outward from Diane.

Diane’s eyes went wide, and Susan, suddenly remembering, spun around to look back at Tedd and Elliot. They were both still in each other’s arms, but they were staring into each other’s eyes with a look of shock on their faces. Susan and Diane began to giggle as the two now-boys sprang apart, nervously babbling excuses at each other. She wondered if the expressions she saw on Ashley’s and Grace’s faces were disappointment, but she was pretty sure she knew the answer to that.

Everyone else in the mall seemed to be human, and the sex-ratios were more normal. No one, aside from Tedd and Elliot, seemed at all perturbed by what had just happened.

She turned back to Diane, to find that the old woman had slipped away during the distraction. She looked around, but saw no sign of her. She sighed, and stood up. She glanced at the wand being held gingerly in Diane’s hand. “How did you?…”

Diane grinned. “Cheerleader, remember? Do you know how many baton-twirling classes I’ve had?”

Susan had never even considered the _existence_ of baton-twirling classes, and shook her head. “Lucky for us, I guess.”

“Yup.”

They both looked over at Tedd and Elliot, who both still tomato-red. They each had an arm firmly around their girlfriends’ shoulder, as if reasserting their masculinity. Which was _highly_ amusing, given who each of them was.

“Someday, those two are just going to have to give in and fuck,” Diane murmured.

“_Diane!” _ Susan exclaimed, her face going red yet again, as she tried to suppress the mental images that Diane’s words evoked.

“You know I’m right.”

Susan looked back at Tedd and Elliot, and couldn’t help but snicker. They _had_ looked very natural together. “Yup.”


End file.
